The Chesapeake Hobie Island Group / Hobie fleet 940, the first official Hobie AI fleet, is excited to announce that we have received confirmation from The North American Director of Racing that the Hobie Adventure Island is now officially a One Design. All proper criteria have been met and final racing rules for the Class will be in our hands by the first of next week.

Official first contacts have been made to the International Committee to have the boat recognized world wide.

It's one racing event to start, but it's sure to be the beginning of something much bigger. And the folks sailing AIs now will be part of the first generation of AI Racing Skippers! Let's make it happen!

By all means, come on out and join the fun. I won't claim that it will be the most organized race that's ever been run, but it'll be a good time none the less. If you're not already signed up, go to http://www.fleet940.com to reach our meetup.com site, sign up there for a meetup.com account, and see the details for this event, and our others as well. We're meeting at 10:00 AM at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum in St Michael's, MD.

Is the class divided into groups that use or do not use the pedal assembly?

It is one class, but we have four different competition format categories. a) Category 1 – No Pedaling Allowed. The Mi-rage Drive may be replaced with the dag-gerboard insert or may be locked in the “fins vertical position”. A violation (pedaling) is protestable under RRS 42.1

b) Category 2 – Limited Pedaling Allowed. A limited number of pedal strokes are allowed when tacking. Once pedaling has com-menced, the tack must be completed. The number of pedal strokes allowed shall be specified in the Sailing Instructions for the event. A pedal stroke is defined as one for-ward or aft movement of one side of the Mi-rage Drive pedals. This changes RRS 42 and IHCA General Class Rule 2 b).

d) Category 4 – Mixed Format. The race com-mittee shall display the number pennant which designates the format to be used for that race (for example, Numeral Pennant 1 – Category 1). The format may be changed at a mark rounding by the display of the appro-priate numeral pennant. The format change does not apply to a boat until they have rounded the mark at which the format change is displayed.

Since today was Fleet 940's first go at running a race, we elected to keep it simple and go with Category 3. We had six boats show up to participate. Conditions were temps in the low to mid 70's, with winds of 10-15 kt, gusting to 20 from the South East. We managed to get three races in, and everybody had a great time.

Happy Sailing, - Jim L

Last edited by Jim_L on Sun Sep 27, 2009 7:15 am, edited 1 time in total.

Since today was Fleet 940's first go at running a race, we elected to keep it simple and go with Category 3. We had six boats show up to participate. Conditions were temps in the low to mid 70's, with winds of 10-15 kt, gusting to 20 from the North West. We managed to get three races in, and everybody had a great time.

Happy Sailing, - Jim L

How did it go, allowing pedalling? Would you say it distorted the race, with everyone pedalling like crazy, or was the pedalling a balanced part of the boats' overall performance?

How did it go, allowing pedalling? Would you say it distorted the race, with everyone pedalling like crazy, or was the pedalling a balanced part of the boats' overall performance?

We weren't really sure how it would all play out, but it worked out pretty well. While any & all peddling was permitted, I'd say that most folks were focusing on the sailing, rather than the peddling. That is how we hoped it would go. There was some peddling, but mostly for jockeying for position, & making turns. Some did a little bit to try and point just that much higher on the wind. What we didn't see was the frantic "Tour de France" peddling that would make the event a peddle kayak race, rather than a sailing kayak race, as had been pondered in previous racing threads on this forum.

We've christened the event as the Flying Tri Regatta, and plan to make it an annual event. The three races were in the harbor area of St. Michael's, MD. Given our fleet's fledgling status and lack of equipment, we used existing harbor markers as our racing marks, forming a triangle course. The first leg was a beat to windward, followed by a beam reach to the second mark. The third leg was a broad reach to the start/finish line, but requiring passing outside the start/finsih line marks, and jibing to come back around and cross the line in the same direction as the start. It was kinda made up on the spot, but we were using what we had to work with. After a day of fun on the water we all adjourned to a local St. Michael's restaurant for some great Italian & Greek food. The good food & company just made for an awesome finish to a great day.

The overall winner for the day was Joseph Thompson. Joe drove all the way down from Massachusetts to participate. One of our local CHIG (Chesapeake Hobie Island Group) members ended up with second overall, and I took home third place for the day. Prizes awarded were mostly sponsor swag (T-shirts & the like), but everybody had a lot of fun. We will be getting a trophy platter made, and it will be engraved with the Fleet 940 logo & info, along with the winner's name & year. When completed, the platter will be displayed in the trophy case at the Boatyard Bar & Grill, in Annapolis, MD. The Boatyard is the favorite watering hole for the local sail racing crowd, and is the display location for a number or local racing trophies & cups. Our little fleet's addition will be in good company. I will be sure to post pictures of the trophy when we have it completed.

I will be sure to post info on our future events. You can keep an eye on it yourself, and even join in the rest of our fun by checking out our meetup.com page. The quickest way to get there is to use the http://www.fleet940.com URL, which goes directly to the meetup page. Eventually the fleet will have our own site, but we're still working on getting everything together. Anyway, keep watching, and come on out an join in our fun.

Funny you should say that Mickey. I've been thinking lately that maybe there are enough AI/TI owners now in the Sydney/Central Coast region to have a racing league, maybe on Pittwater.The AI and TI would need to be separate classes, but it sounds like most of the foundation work for the AI has already been done in the U.S.Sounds like you may be able to arrange something similar on the Gippsland Lakes.

Pirate, an ACT/VIC/NSW hookup at Narooma or Bateman's Bay is a great idea. Unfortunately, my wife is undergoing some intensive medical therapy for the next couple of months and I don't want to leave her alone for an entire weekend.